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Review: Chilliwack X By OryxSim

Review: Chilliwack X By Oryx

By Bill StackFebruary 15, 2012

Screen shots by Oryx Simulation
Software

Chilliwack is a city of 80,000
people in the Canadian province of British Columbia. It is in
Fraser River Valley just north of the border between Canada and the
United States. Surrounded by tall mountains, broad rivers, and deep
lakes, its primary economic activities are agriculture, mining, and
tourism. The City of Chilliwack website boasts numerous
recreational facilities such as hiking, skiing, camping, fishing,
and horseback riding.

Chilliwack Municipal Airport (CYCW) serves the city and region
with one 4,030-foot (1,229 meter) runway. Its passenger terminal is
designed to accommodate aircraft carrying up to 19 passengers
according to the City of Chilliwack website. These passengers would
be on private or charter aircraft because this airport has no
regularly scheduled airline flights. About 75 private and
commercial aircraft are based there, and it is home to more than 20
aviation-related businesses such as charter companies and
flight-training schools. Although this airport is in a mountainous
region, its official elevation is only 39 feet (12 meters) MSL
according to the FSX facilities directory.

During the last weekend of August, the airport hosts an annual
air show called Chilliwack Flight Test featuring "top-name
performers." According to Wikipedia, pilots often call ahead by
radio for meals in the airport cafe and Chilliwack Airport "is
known across the West Coast of North America to flyers as the
little airport with fresh-cooked pies." I found several websites
that verify this fame.

Oryx Simulations Software highlights these features of its
Chilliwack scenery:

Highly detailed version of Chilliwack Airport

Seasonal textures

Added vegetation in direct surroundings.

Corrected roads

Custom vehicles

3D grass

Special version for compatibility with Orbx's Pacific Northwest
scenery

SCENERY LOCATION

Screen Shots by Bill Stack

The Scenery

Oryx Sim's Chilliwack scenery comprises the airport (described
later) and urban areas around it. Scenery around the airport is
enhanced several miles from the airport with autogenerated scenery
terrain, roads, and buildings that reflect urbanization in those
areas. Compared with satellite photos available on the Internet,
Oryx's overall depiction of these areas is reasonable. Buildings
outside the airport are not realistic depictions of anything that
is really there, however, because they are autogenerated by
FSX.

AIRPORT COMPARISONS

Oryx Sim

FSX Default

Oryx Sim

FSX Default

Screen shots by Bill Stack

The Airport

Oryx Sim's rendition of Chilliwack Municipal Airport is fairly
realistic compared with the satellite photos I found on the
Internet. The runway, taxiways, and aprons seem true to the photos,
but not all the buildings are represented, and not all the
represented buildings are accurate. In its manual, Oryx Sim says:
"OryxSim does give no guarantee that the Chilliwack Airport
depicted in this scenery is accurate as this scenery is based on
the sources available in the public domain. Should you have
additional material which we can use to improve the scenery, please
sent it to us and we gladly update it based on the new
information."

The 3D grasses, the likes of which I've seen in other sceneries,
makes the taxiing experience more realistic if we assume that
Chilliwack doesn't mow the grass around the runway and taxiways.
Oryx Sim advises disabling the 3D grasses if they diminishes
performance. This procedure is explained in the manual. I didn't
find any diminished performance, but I'm operating a high-capacity
home computer with Windows 7. Flight simmers with lesser computers
might have different experiences than mine.

In response to my questions about the runways and taxiways being
fuzzy instead of sharp and distinct, Oryx Sim said the
following:

"First off all, as developers we felt that taxiways
edges were inappropriate for an airport of such a size. Still, we
have experimented with it and passed the most satisfactory result
onto those doing beta testing. However, we got quite a bit of
comments in regards to those edges and many people thought they
looked very much out of place. We decided to pull them from this
project and play around them for longer for the next releases. I
hope that we will be able to retrofit Chilliwack at some point if
we think that what has been done works."

AIRPORT DETAILS

Screen shots by Bill Stack

Animations

There are no animations other than the motor traffic on highways
outside the airport. The developer said its Chilliwack will likely
be the last release without animations. "Our goal for 2012 is to up
the game and get our airports more alive than before!" he said.

Night Views

Night effects are acceptable. Buildings that are lighted at
night are realistically lighted by interior light through windows
and sometimes by "street" lights. But some buildings are totally
dark at night. Airport ground lighting appears to be realistic
based on information I found on the Internet. Both runways have
Medium Intensity Runway Lighting System (MIRL) and Precision
Approach Path Indicator (PAPI), and these are shown in Oryx Sim's
depiction.

NIGHT VIEWS

Screen shots by Bill Stack

Using the Scenery

Chilliwack Airport seems ideal as a launching point for bush
flying and sightseeing around the Canadian Rockies. It's also a
good destination for general-aviation and charter flights from
other airports in Canada.

Use of this airport for realistic flight simulation would be
restricted to general-aviation aircraft, small multi-passenger
aircraft, and business jets &#8212 all under visual flight
rules. Without scheduled commercial airline traffic at Chilliwack,
any commercial activity would be by private charter companies.
Indeed, all the aircraft I saw in satellite photos appeared to be
for general aviation, and that's all I found in Oryx's scenery. The
closest commercial airport is Abbotsford International about 18
nautical miles to the west.

Without published instrument approach procedures or approach
lights for landing in foul weather, IFR activity would be
disallowed, limiting this airport to visual flights.

This airport is not listed as an airport of entry, which means
no Customs, which means no inbound flights of any kind from outside
Canada. But Wikipedia says the airport is well known as a "fly for
pie" airport because of the "popularity of their airport cafe that
attracts mainly weekend pilots from the US and the Lower Mainland."
This implies that flights from outside Canada are allowed.

USING CHILLIWACK
AIRPORT

Screen shots by Bill Stack

Documents

Oryx provides an 11-page manual in portable-document format
(PDF) that explains installation procedure and provides basic
information about the airport and this scenery.

THE MANUAL

Screen shots by Bill Stack

Technical Features

Oryx Sim's Chilliwack scenery is for FSX only. Acceleration,
SP1, or SP2 are not required. The scenery is compatible with
Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Purchase and installation from the Pilot Shop are very easy.
Downloading and installation are quick because the files are not
huge.

The installation program installs the scenery files into the FSX
Addon Scenery folder. A small program called
"SceneryActivator.exe," together with "ActivatorConfig.ini,"
ensures the scenery is added to the library when Chilliwack is
installed. Then it can be used for verifying that the scenery is
correctly placed. The scenery can be manually activated without
Scenery Activator if desired.

No special settings are required for using this scenery because
there are no high-demand features such as animations or clutters of
static objects that could diminish frame rates.

To make my comparative screen shots, I first made a series of
shots with Oryx Sim's scenery activated, and I then went to
precisely the same vantage points with Oryx Sim's scenery
deactivated (FSX default). Any differences in positions of objects
results from differences in the depictions, not from faults in the
viewpoints of my screenshots. In one photo, however, I was forced
to move the viewpoint about 50 feet to the left to get the
comparison effect. Otherwise there would have been nothing in the
shot. It's no uncommon for add-on scenery to differ from default
FSX because default FSX isn't absolutely accurate in all
locations.

Technical support is available via an email form on Oryx Sim's
website. Responses to my inquiries were quick, clear, courteous,
and helpful.

Readers with technical questions not answered in this review
should ask the developer. Using the links below, go to the Pilot
Shop page where the product is listed and described, then click on
"Manufacturer Tech Support" in the right column.

PURCHASE FEATURES

Instant download from the Pilot Shop

Yes

Installation program

Yes

License key

No

Copyright acknowledgment

Yes

Manual included

Yes

Uninstall program included

No

TECHNICAL FEATURES

MSFS Version

FSX

Operating System

Windows XP, Vista, 7

Special Settings

None

Frame Rates

Good

Tech Support

Good

Price

$10.50 US

More Information

Information about Chilliwack is available from several reliable
sources:

Oryx Simulation Software specializes in scenery design for
flight simulators, custom 3D objects, and web design. "OryxSim
strives to make sceneries that are known as being of high quality,
and always tries to do its very best when it comes to the graphical
representation of an airport and performance," its manual says. The
company was incorporated in the Netherlands in 2011. Oryx
Simulation Software is not to be confused with Orbx
Simulation Systems, which is a different company. Oryx also
makes Muscat International
Airport. I recently reviewed its Kelowna X (also in Canada).

Summary

Oryx Sim's Chilliwack scenery helps make the experience in this
beautiful region more enjoyable. The airport is fairly accurate
given the availability of source materials. Oryx Sim invites users
to submit source materials for further enhancements. Autogenerated
scenery around the airport provides the urbanization missing from
FSX default scenery. Night effects are reasonable. The manual
provides useful airport information, including an airport diagram.
Technical support is timely and useful. Although this scenery is
not the caliber of other sceneries I have reviewed, it also costs
considerably less, so the experience is adequately enhanced for a
low price.